How did Aristotle view matter? Aristotle’s main Greek word for matter is ὕλη (hýlē). Interestingly, hýlē originally meant wood, timber, or forest — the raw stuff one builds with. Why would Aristotle choose such a word to name the underlying constituent of all things?
What does wood have to do with matter?
For Aristotle, hýlē represented the potential — not actuality.
“Matter (hýlē) exists potentially, while form (eidos) exists in actuality.” — Metaphysics
In other words, hýlē is matter as potential — something not yet formed. This may well be the reason why the word was later translated into Latin as materia, derived from mater (“mother”). Originally, however, materia also referred to wood or building material, especially timber taken from a tree.
The proximity of materia to mater (“mother”) is not accidental: both hýlē and mater point to that which gives birth, nourishes, and brings forth. For Aristotle, wood is the most fitting metaphor for potentiality.
Just as a mother brings a person from potentiality into actuality — not by imposing a shape from without, but by allowing form to emerge from within — so wood (hýlē) represents something waiting to be shaped. Matter is not dead or mechanical, not a mere standing reserve.
It is something living that grows and reveals its potential in various forms. The ancients saw matter not as something we shape but as something that shapes us. Wood is not something we grow; it is something that grows us. That is why the first thing God did after creating Adam and Eve was to plant a garden in the East.
God knew that humans could realize their potential only among living things. It was the Garden that shaped Adam, not vice versa. The Garden was the womb that would shape Adam into the person he was made to be. As Adam tended the Garden, the Garden tended Adam. Adam grew the Garden, and the Garden grew Adam.
Humans grow only in the garden — that’s why we have kindergartens. We must have “adult-gardens” as well. That is what Elder Amphilochios (Makris) of Patmos must have felt when he told people, after receiving their confession, that their penance was to plant a tree.
Curiously, older descriptions of Patmos note that the island historically had very few trees. Today, there are areas of pine, tamarisk, cypress, mastic, and other trees growing naturally and in groves. The island is turning into a garden.
If you want to grow, you must grow something. Resilience to evil comes to those who, like hobbits, “love all things that grow.” The only way to overcome evil is to be rooted in the soil of the earth — which is “deeper magic.”
As St. Amphilochios used to say to his many disciples:
“Do you know that God gave us one more commandment, which is not recorded in Scripture? It is the commandment “love the trees.” When you plant a tree, you plant hope.”
